I have made a lot of friends with my journal. And I am very happy and proud of that.
One was a businesswoman, who was very depressed and feeling miserable. I was able to calm and support her. We were friends. Through silly emails I cheered and amused her. She cheered and charmed me. She hung in there. She got a better job. Pessimism gave way to optimism.
She likes to forward amusing and clever emails to friends. I have received many and enjoyed them. BUT the most recent was one of those “send this message to five of your friends and you will have good luck….BUT UNLESS YOU SEND THIS TO FIVE FRIENDS YOU WILL HAVE BAD LUCK.”
I let this silly, childhood game annoy me. And annoy me so much that I sent a rebuke to my friend. Since she had only meant to amuse, she was hurt by my rebuke she wrote: “Don’t worry. You will never receive another email from me.”
I have lost a friend.
How sorry I am that I could not take a joke, an amusing email in stride. I am sorry I could not control my temper. And I have had this reaction before, to similar letters demanding a response or receive bad luck. My friend could not have known this was a pet peeve of mine. There were kinder simpler ways to react.
I am sorry. I hope she reads this and can accept my apology.
Remorseful old man.
22 comments:
Gee I understand how you felt.... I hate that kind of mail too. I hope you haven't really lost a friend and that she forgets about it soon. If you can surely she can too... Sandra
I agree, I hate those things...and...hope your friend will remember the GOOD LUCK of having friends.
Kate
I also do not like that kind of email. The emails are ok until you get to the bottom of them where they mess it up by telling you that you will have bad luck unless you forward it on to a cartain amoubt of people within so many minutes. Makes you wonder why someone would stick that kind of ending on an email. A lot of forwards have them like that. Maybe she will rethink the whole thing. Helen
Thats a pity. I hope she gets over her peeve. I never forward those messages either and have survived to tell the tale. Maybe send her another private email and explain again perhaps she'll realise that she is not being very fair to you. Terry x
http://journals.aol.co.uk/tellsg/bowl-of-cherries/
Chuck e-mail her and let her know!
I get those stupid games and just delete them after I send it back to the sender. have a great day!
Iam afraid Idelete those sort ,love Jan xx
I hate them too.. Usually not forwarding unless I like the content and then, usually copy/paste that part. I will not forward the guilt of not sending them out. It stops here.
Jackie
I hate those chain letters too.
A real friend will understand and accept an apology (and never send another stupid chain letter again).
I think she overracted and I hope you two can resolve this. ~Sie
Remorseful? Of course. But your cyber-friend showed a terrible lack of judgement by sending a 'do this or suffer' email and she deserved to be called on it. Sorry that it cost you a friendship -- it's happened to me, several times.
But I'll still call someone on it if it happens again.
Be reassured Charles that you aren't the only one who's had this kneejerk reaction. I popped off at a very good friend and she no longer sends personal emails. But she continues with the jokes and prayer thingies. I did the same thing to a cousin who sent an email reminding everyone to put out flags on 9/11. I angrely reminded her that Dad died on 9/11 and we always put flags out. So, we're all guilty. Hopefully, it will blow over.
Annie
Hello Chuck - i am so sorry to hear of this 'tiff' with your friend. A bit of an over reaction on both parts i think - consider sending her an email explaining how you feel about these 'chain emails'. Rather than upset my friends that send them to me i just delete them without reading them.
Take care
Jayne x
http://journals.aol.co.uk/funnyface0s0/SingleGirl
Delete works great on this kind of junk. Paula
I have to wonder how much she valued the friendship if she won't allow anything but abject admiration from you. Sounds like she wants to do what she wants to do, and if you don't like it she won't like you. I gave up those friendships in fifth grade.
This incident interests me. I wonder if, upon closer scrutiny of the facts, the term "friend" really applies. Maybe I'm way out in left field, but I'll put forth the suggestion that it's really not possible to lose a friend just by saying something that offends them.
Having lost a lifelong friend as the result of an incident that began a bit like this one, I am probably oversensitive on the topic. But in my own case, both of us (my friend and I) struggled to reconstitute the relationship. It was (or at least seemed) important enough for both of us to fight for.
During that process -- which included both angry and conciliatory words on both of our parts -- I believe we (and am certain that at least I) developed a more clear understanding of the foundations of our relationship. And, though we "made up" at the end of that period of churning, I realized, at last, that what had seemed for more than three decades to be "friendship" was actually something else -- perhaps along the lines of what's now often referred to as "co-dependency."
In the instant case, however, I wonder how deep the friendship may have become. I wonder whether long-distance "cheering," "amusing" and "charming" reveal glimpses of that inner part of us is that we tend to share only with a few others.
And I am skeptical of a friendship that either party is willing to terminate so abruptly (e.g. "Don't worry. You will never receive another email from me.")
I suspect, Chuck, that you may have lost one whom you considered a friend -- but the evidence seems to support my theory that this wasn't a frienship as I define the term.
To paraphrase (and probably totally corrupt) Marc Antony in Shakespeare's [ital]Julius Caesar[/ital], "[friendship] should be made of sterner stuff."
I believe that if the potential for true friendship exists in this case you will hear from this woman again. If not, you may put your mind
Awwww that is such a sad thing to read :( I hope she does read this entry and forgive you!! Those emails are so stupid and silly................how can an email give you bad luck?? Who really knows whether you've forwarded it on or not!!
Jen xx
These things always annoy me, too. Chain letters bug many people. They're a totally unnecessary burden on busy people, so I almost never send anything on. The only time I even reply to one is if it involves a rumor. Then I look it up on Snopes.com, and I almost always get to report that it's not true. BUT: I know the people who send these things mean well, so I never complain or tell them how I deleted their precious email about 30 seconds after opening it. I don't want to hurt their feelings. But I hope that someday they will notice that they never hear back from me on these things, and take the hint!
Those things annoy me too. I believe if somebody wants to send something cute along, but it says that on the bottom, they should merely delete that part. That is what I do if I want to send a cute email on. I hate when I get one that tells me I am going to have bad luck, or die, or have no friends, or get good luck, or get prayers answered, or whatever if I do or do not send an email along. How presumptuous. Having said all that, I am sure your friend didn't mean to be presumptuous, she was just quickly sending something along. But in defense of you, Chuck, don't be SO HARD ON YOURSELF!
Krissy :)
I have made many friends online and have enjoyed the conversations we have had, but that is what it is an online friendship. We really do not know these people and how they tick unless they tell us. I am a very sensitive person for some reason, I do not yell at people because I do not want to be yelled at. I get many emails forwarded to me and when I think they will be enjoyed I will forward them on. Well, no more of that, I will no longer forward mail to a non family member due to a situation that hurt my feelings and someone elses. I sent something along that was not liked and boy did I get a lecture about it. A simple statement of I do not like those kind of emails would have been fine but no I was talked to like a criminal. I am not a mind reader and was unaware of their likes and dislikes when it comes to mail. So friends thanks for your wonderful emails but maybe this is a blessing, I will no longer forward anything to any of my online friends so not to offend anyone without knowing it. Chuck your email to me was very nasty and you only put part of my email in your journal, no harm was meant by sending on this email but thank you for making me see things differently. Now I will not send emails on. I thought that you would find the phone ringing fun and amazing but I was wrong.
Those kinds of emails annoy me too, but I just read them and delete them. When I send someone one of those emails, I always erase the part about it not working unless they forward. I generally don't forward unless it's something really worth my while, but I always erase that part, because it annoys me too. I figure if someone wants to send it on, they will.. if not.. doesn't matter. The blessings that I sent still meant the same.
Hopefully your friend will forgive you. Life is much to short to hold grudges..
Jackie
I hate those things and FWD's! I won't even open an email that has FWD in the subject line. I've asked nicely that people not send me FWD's and they get their bloomers in a wad and stop emailing me all together or ignore me and send them anyway.
I didn't have a problem with them until last year when a friend sent me and a bunch of other people a FWD. All of our names ended up on a mailing list that sent out hundreds of emails per day and I almost lost my aol account all because I opened a FWD!
Lahoma
Sometimes those requests are mindless junk that clog the Internet and urge others to perpetuate clogging behavior. People think they are being nice and want to reassure us that we are their friend. I do not pass them along any more, but sometimes send them a reply thanking them for the religious content. One of those was suppose to grant money to the sender. It read that Microsoft would pay because it was tracking the performance of email. Totally factious and designed to show how gullible people can be. For some stupid reason I actually sent the first one on to people and did myself some damage in credibility personally. Then I received one from someone that I had been very personable with and this time I wrote her back and told her that people who send that crap annoy me. She has not had an entry in her journal for over a year and I have lost contact with her completely. You honestly put effort into helping her and it should be her loss not yours if she can't let it go. Fragile people don't get stronger by avoiding criticism. mark
I cant believe how hard shes being on u,especially after how u helped her,its definitly her loss, Chuck
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